[EDITOR’S NOTE: Not long ago, we ran a mini-series about Long Songs that we really liked. The longest, and last, in the series was a powerful, album-length opus by a Swedish black-metal duo called Obitus (our review of the album is here). Through that review, we made the acquaintance of Johan Huldtgren, the vocalist and lyricist of Obitus, and his comments on this site have turned us on to some stunning music.
Eventually, we figured out that Johan was the brother of Fredrik Huldtgren, the vocalist for Canopy — another metal band whose work we had praised earlier in the year. We asked the brothers Huldtgren if they would contribute to our Listmania Week, and they did. In this post, Johan gives us his Top 10 list (it’s more mind-expanding than most lists you will read this year), and a selection of one song from each album. In the post below this one, we’ve got Fredrik’s list.]
10. Ash Pool – For Which He Plies The Lash
Noisy, nasty, primitive, minimalistic, and all around disgusting.
(the balance of Johan’s list follows the jump . . .)
9. Nightbringer – Apocalypse Sun
Show, repetitive and churning, the droning easily sweeps you away.
8. Ondskapt – Arisen From The Ashes
Solid album, but nothing new under the sun.
7. Burzum – Belus
To everybody’s surprise some ex-cons can make really good music.
6. Misery Index – Heirs To Thievery
More polished (good), less grindy (bad) than before this, it is still an amazing album.
5. Drudkh – Handfull of Stars
Not the Drudkh of old, but solidly down the road they’ve been walking for a while now. Wish they’d kept a dirtier guitar sound though.
4. Sargeist – Let The Devil In
Execution makes this one hell of an album as the songs are very standard fare. Top notch delivery on vocals and guitars really makes all the difference.
3. Canopy – Menhir
Having morphed from regressive death metal to progressive death metal could be seen as quite the about face. However, the seeds have always been there. It just took Menhir to fully realize it.
2. Watain – Lawless Darkness
Watain follow up the excellent “Sworn to the Dark” with the equally amazing “Lawless Darkness” — cleaner and slower than it’s predecessor, but no less gripping and infectious. This has easily been my most played album of 2010.
1. Deathspell Omega – Paracletus
Concluding their theological trilogy, they pick a middle ground between “Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice” and “Fas – Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum”. That said, this is still no easy listening and will win them no new fans. Those of us who have been here for the whole ride, though, will just keep hitting “play”.
11 Responses to “JOHAN HULDTGREN’S 2010 TOP 10”
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I love that I’m no longer the only person who loves on DsO.
Hail Satan!!!
You never were.
I just didn’t think “Paracletus” was as great as everyone says.
I also didn’t hate it as much as everyone seems to.
In fact, who are these “everyone” who both love and hate DsO? They’re all bastards.
In many ways I find Paracletus to be one of the, if the not the best DsO album, but it’s very very hard to say. I really like them all, but Paracletus seems to me at least to be the most refined of the trilogy releases. While at times I miss some of the chaos and madness from “Fas – Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum” at other times I really like being able to just listen to it without having my head spin.
So I realized that I should have included a section for Honorable Mentions, the following albums are good just not top ten good, or I got them too late to really form enough of an opinion, but yet feel they are worthy (in alphabetical order):
Blut Aus Nord – What Once Was … Liber I
Celeste – Morte(s) Nee(s)
Eastern Front – Blood On Snow
Galla – Chaos Come
Immolation – Majesty and Decay
Krieg – The Isolationist
Twilight – Monument to Time End
For me personally, I think your list is one of the most interesting of all we’ve run this week simply because it has a high percentage of music I haven’t heard. I hope I can find the time to catch up. I’ve finally started listening to the Burzum release, and wish i’d done it sooner. Amazing music.
I think the Burzum album took many of us by surprise, I certainly wasn’t expecting him to release such a good album after 14 years of releasing crap. So I very pleasantly surprised.
I also started listening to the Celeste album today too (it’s been all black metal today, in honor of Christmas), and it’s knocking me down, too. I’ve had it on rotation with Burzum and Winterfylleth. I feel like I’ve been hypnotized by demonic wood spirits.
Personally I found both the preceeding Celeste albums to be better (as you’ve read) but I do like the new one. Was just a bit disappointed with it as I was hoping for an improvement with each successive release.
The packaging for each cd has been beautiful though.
I’ve never yet taken the time to get into Burzum, I feel like I should at least try.
Although currently I’m having a crisis of my own with regards to Disiplin, who have a new album I want, but whose socio-political stance I don’t agree with.
The new Celeste is the only one I’ve heard, so can’t make the comparison (yet), but I do like it.
I’ve still only made it half-way through the new Burzum, because I got stuck listening to Glemselens Elv. It’s almost 12 minutes long, and I had it on constant rotation for a long time yesterday . . . What’s the political issue with Disiplin?
Their first two albums are slightly martial-industrial black metal. Quite nasty and vicious. Good grasp of riffage and molten vocals.
But the newest two have gone in a far more experimental direction – which wouldn’t be too bad if their website didn’t now prominently display the NSBM logo.
Hmmm…
Perhaps you can find a way to listen to their music without contributing to them monetarily, that way you get to hear it but you withhold your financial support as you don’t agree with them politically. 🙂